We all want something in life. It's a fact of our human nature.
To reach for the stars, to fulfill our dreams, to be more than just a mortal creature.
What will you do to get what you want,
To achieve success and accolades?
What will you sacrifice?
What will you do,
And what are you willing to trade?
If you have the gumption to risk everything
In order that your life may change,
Then come spend the night at Le Manoir Macabre....
I invite you to make the Exchange!
--Cordially, Your Host, Anthony St. John

*****************************

Remy Avrait had seen Anthony St. John only once: when she was a child, five years old, sitting by her father's side as he pored through old and crumbling documents in his flat. That day had come before the Walden School, before the Headmistress, before the endless studying and fetching and carrying. She had been treated like any of the school's other servants--nay, even lower! At least the other servants were paid wages, but she was not. Remy received nothing for all the hard work she did, except an education that felt more like indoctrination. As long as you did what you were told, and fast, then you were safe. If not, then you were beaten or cast out onto the streets.

Anthony St. John was not the man who had put her there, but he was possibly the one man who could get her out. For one thing, he had a vague yet irrefutable connection to the Headmistress herself, and for another, he was wealthy, handsome, and influential. That combination of traits was not only admirable, but absolutely necessary in a potential patron. Remy was hoping that Anthony would convince the Headmistress that she would be a poor candidate for becoming a teacher at Walden, and thus spare her from a life of misery. In Remy's eyes, the only thing worse than being a suffering student at that wretched, so-called "boarding school" was being an instructor there, ordered to inflict daily cruelties upon said students for the slightest infraction.

If Anthony could save her, she would offer him her eternal gratitude!

However, what Remy really wanted was not only salvation from those four cold stone walls behind which she'd been imprisoned for sixteen years, but salvation from the cold, dread silence that swallowed her whole every night. Loneliness was killing her, as well as near-poverty. However, she desired love more than money. Remy knew full well that without true love in one's life, gold was garbage and silver was slime. She would do anything to find her match...

Including going to a dinner party at the reportedly-haunted Le Manoir Macabre. She had received a mysterious invitation in the mail from Anthony St. John, inviting her to an exclusive event at which only three other people were to attend besides the host. I'm so lucky! she thought. He could have invited anyone, but he chose me, whom he's only seen as a five-year-old waif leaning on her late father's knee! I don't know why he sent me this invitation instead of someone else more worthy, but I'm going to this soiree anyway. I'm not going to lose this chance to change my life, because right now, it's my only one!